Tania Ann Baker

Tania A. Baker is the Edwin C. Whitehead Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an Assistant Molecular Biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  Baker is a leader in biochemical studies of DNA transposition, the function of disassembly chaperones, and energy-dependent protein degradation. Over the course of her career, she has advanced scientific understanding of fundamental life processes ranging from viral replication to the proteolytic resculpting of the cellular proteome. Her current research, which investigates how AAA+ unfoldases enzymes recognize and manipulate damaged cellular proteins, has earned her numerous honors including the American Society of Microbiology Eli Lilly Award and the Stanford School of Medicine Arthur Kronberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award. Her commitment to teaching has earned her a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellowship, as well as a School of Science Teaching Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. Baker’s numerous scientific articles appear in journals such as Cell, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. She is also coauthor of the book DNA Replication (2nd edition) as well as of the 5th and 6th editions of Watson’s influential text Molecular Biology of the Gene. In addition to her American Academy of Arts and Sciences membership, Baker is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Microbiology.